


Confession

by gaysandcrime



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dumbledore Bashing, Emotional Hurt, Friendly Harry, I suck at tagging, James Potter Bashing, Lily Bashing, Lily Evans is a shitty friend, M/M, Manipulative Dumbledore, Marauders' Era, Mental Health Issues, No one gives something without expecting something in return, Rape/Non-con Elements, Really really fucking slow, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Sirius Bashing, Sirius Black is a fucking asswipe, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Triggers like fucking crazy, Understanding Harry, Young Severus Snape, basically a happy ending, sort of
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2017-09-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 20:52:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8637670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaysandcrime/pseuds/gaysandcrime
Summary: Severus knows it shouldn't matter, that he shouldn't let it get to him; after all, if he's never told anybody, then he can't expect anyone to know. But that doesn't stop him from feeling disappointed, and it certainly doesn't stop him from feeling scared.But what else is new?





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> YIKES! TRIGGERS! MAJOR FUCKING TRIGGERS! WARNING X 1000000!  
> Rape, violence, depression, suicidal thoughts, self-harm and a whole bunch of other terrible, desperate, dark things. BEWARE. This is the only note I'm giving you, so consider yourself WARNED.

Time really doesn't heal; it just blurs things. Three months ago, Severus had been fine. Three months ago, he had been happy. Now, two months and twenty-five days after Sirius Black, the pain that he had managed to push away finally bubbles back up. Curled up in the fetus position, Severus tries to deepen his breathing and push his thoughts down and away while he waits for it all to stop. Memories of that night run through his mind; the darkness of nighttime, the feeling of fists in his gut and the sound of a belt slipping through trouser loops. The harsh breathing of happy anger. The slapping of skin on skin contact. The harsh gasp and flush skin of arousal. The look in Sirius's eyes, like ice on fire, sharp and gleaming with a promise.

The promise of pain.

Now, his chest hurts, his back hurts, his head hurts; everything hurts. The pain is different than he remembers, it feels nothing like a bruised sternum or a sprained wrist. It feels nothing like the detached, vague stretch that the drink and the drugs had graced him with. It feels like he is cracked, like finally, after weeks of nothing, he has finally been broken. Severus shuts his eyes and holds himself tighter. It feels like the absence of light, similar to what he imagines draining all of your blood out might feel like. It feels empty.

It feels like dying.

His chest heaves, his breaths are short and loud. Tears stream from his eyes, and he can't stop them. He sniffles, and rests his aching head against the tile wall. He whimpers.

"Why me?" he asks himself for the first time since that night, his voice sounding incredibly small in the vast silence of the empty bathroom. "Why me?"

This is the day he stops believing in the world.

* * *

**[Three months previous]**

 

By the beginning of his sixth year at Hogwarts, Severus loves and hates school in equal measure. Because while he adores learning -almost more than anything else, to be honest- he _loathes_  his classmates. Not all of them mind you, not even most of them; he hates a specific group. Just four boys, also in his year, in a different house than him. Not that he _likes_  most of the students, on the contrary, he rather dislikes them as well. The stupid girls, with their little pigtails and their stupid pink accessories. Always talking about the newest fashion or the most recent copy of Witch Weekly. Fluttering their lashes and giggling in a nauseating display in the hopes of catching one of the boy's attention. It's positively _sickening_.

And the boys- my god! They are even worse! Always posturing about their future wealth and power, showing off on their broomsticks, as if nearly killing oneself in the name of sport is _admirable_. And they stare at the photo's of obscene magazines, and point out their favourites, and brag about what they'll do to those women if they ever met them, as if they know how to please a woman, as if they know anything about sexual activity at all. They brag about their non-existent sexual exploits, and whistle rudely at the girls in the years above them, thinking that their blood and their wealth and their fathers' political power makes up for a lack of manners, a lack of basic human decency.

It varies by house, of course. Being in Slytherin, Severus finds himself dealing more with those who equate money and blood to power and success, those who believe that the world will continue to be lined with gold and handed to them on a pure silver platter. But Severus knows that blood doesn't mean anything more than the red liquid which pumps through his veins and heart to keep him alive; his mother is a pureblood, and she is still living in poverty, beaten and abused and unloved.

In Ravenclaw, one is more likely to find themselves dealing with a more serious, studious, academic type of the same brand of idiocy; Ravenclaws will equate academic success with future success in the world as if their grades are the most important thing. Severus knows better, has always known better, and while he makes sure to excel in class, he _never_ allows himself to be deluded by the thought that the world actually cares what his grades are. He understands that no matter how well you do in school, you will not do well in the world, at least not based off of the same ideas and criteria. After all, Hogwarts is a controlled environment, overflowing with resources and opportunities to go further and do better; the world is not.

Hufflepuff house is more aware of the hard work needed to accomplish things but is also endlessly naive. They are too optimistic, too trusting, too friendly. These are the students that don't believe a smile could be hiding cruelty, that a friendly face could be hiding manipulation. They will always help first, and ask questions later. Which makes them easy to use, and easy to lie to. It makes them unprepared for the harshness and torrential downpour of chaos the world has to offer them. They are sheltered by their natures, and while Severus understands that their naivety will ultimately be their downfall, sometimes he wishes he could also be that naive, that simple, that _innocent_. But he isn't, and how can he be when every summer he has to watch his father drink a little more, and his mother become a little bit more hopeless and downtrodden? How can he, when every year he is tormented and taunted by his classmates? So Severus leaves the Hufflepuff's to their collective naivety, and while he doesn't begrudge them it, he does privately envy it.

The Gryffindor's, on the other hand, are more like Slytherin's than they will ever willingly admit. The only difference is the side they are on. Their pride drives them, their arrogance and belief in their infallibility. Much like the Slytherin's, there is a fixation on wealth and power, and to a degree even blood. They believe that their position in school will somehow affect their position in the world. They equate popularity, money, quidditch skill and bloodlines with success and their pride and arrogance make them insufferable. There is no place for misplaced pride in the real world, and there is certainly no place for arrogance; Severus understands this. He also understands that, although helpful, wealth and family power is not everything. Indeed, without one's own skill, there can be no hope for any but those who would live an idle, useless life, content to be nothing but a spendthrift for the rest of their days. As this doesn't appeal to Severus, -and frankly, never has- he knows that he will be fine even without the wealth and power from a birthright.

Severus, for all that he is a fifteen-year-old boy, has a deeper and more inherent understanding of these things than even most adults. The fact that he is unafraid to say them out loud, however, causes him problems every now and again. Because even though all of the above is bad and makes school a place he endures rather than a place he adores, it isn't the worst of it.

The worst of it is that in between all the bragging, and the lies, and the _pitiful_  attempts at power plays, these same people allow their insecurities to come out, and take over their conscious minds. And it is then that they seek out a person who is better than them at something, and they pummel that person (sometimes alone and sometimes in groups) until they no longer feel insecure. As though beating someone else up proves that they are somehow superior to that person, as if they became better by instigating violence. And Severus is the best at lessons, and the best in his year with magic, and a veritable prodigy in Potions- and also scrawny, poor, a half-blood and mostly alone. So of course, it makes sense (in a perverted sort of way) that he is the major target for bullies. That the biggest bullies come from a rival house, and that their leader just happens to have an obsession with Severus's best (and only) friend is just icing on the proverbial cake.

Not that he cares. Severus is fine with being the other boy's favourite punching bag- he is after all, quite adept at defending himself if he ever truly needs to. Personally, he thinks the attacks are fairly pathetic. No, he can handle whatever they throw at him since he will still be the top student in any academic class he enters. What he can't handle, however, is flying.

Severus scowls and his fingers clench painfully around the handle of his broom. Quidditch was clearly a game thought up by a sadist, who enjoyed the idea of torturing children. As far as he can see, it serves absolutely no purpose other than to humiliate and cause grievous injury to those who play it. Alongside this, Severus has never been very good on a broom; during flying lessons in his first year, he had been one of the very last to get off the ground and had needed much more help and instruction than any of the other students in his class. His dismal flying abilities had only fueled the Gryffindor boy's laughter and jokes, especially on the occasions where he found himself in the Hospital Wing after a bad fall. After that terrible experience, it never occurred to him that five years down the line he would be commissioned (ordered) to play for the Slytherin team as a reserve Beater. And while this is terribly alarming and not at all welcome, he doesn't fight it because he knows the chances of him ever actually having to  _play_ are slim to none. That doesn't stop him from having to participate in practices, though.

He trembles on his broom and holds the wooden bat in his hand aloft as one of the vicious black bludgers comes shooting towards him. Severus has to physically stop himself from dodging out of the way, and he closes his eyes, his body tensing in anticipation. He can hear the sound of the ball flying towards him and opens his eyes just as it comes close enough to hit. He swings his bat as hard as he possibly can, feeling a desperate relief flow through his body at the smacking sound when the bat actually manages to knock the ball away from him. He lets out a breath he didn't know he had been holding and watches as the bludger makes its way across the pitch. 

He follows its path with his eyes, -ridiculously grateful that he had managed to hit it at all, to be honest- before his eyes widen and he lurches forward. The movement is useless, of course, considering the bludger is already on the other side of the pitch, and technically flying by its own hand, no longer affected by his measly hit. That doesn't stop him from trying to reach out to stop what he can see is about to happen, though; but of course, he's too late. The bludger, now circling the stands, suddenly lunges down towards the group of boys on the ground. He watches while his stomach twists uncomfortably as the black ball nearly bashes in one of the boys' skulls, only missing because his friend pushes him out of the way at the last moment. The moment the ball pulls itself from the ground it shoots back up into the air and comes flying back the way it came. The group of boys follow the bludger with their eyes, and when the ball shoots past Severus, he watches as their eyes lock onto him in recognition.

Severus gulps and quickly turns away, hoping that they'll leave without confronting him but knowing in his heart that they won't. _I'm probably the entire reason they're here in the first place,_ he thinks bitterly while watching the rest of the team finish up the practice.  _Me on a broom is always good for a laugh._  

 

"Okay, wrap it up guys!" Lucinda, the Captain, shouts from where she is hovering. The rest of the team slowly begin their descent back to the ground and Severus trails behind, hoping that if he wastes enough time flying, he'll be able to escape walking back with his team and also avoid a confrontation with the four bullies he knows are still loitering around somewhere. His plan is thwarted, however, by one of his teammates.

"Get your scrawny ass down here, Snape!"

Severus sighs and drops down to the ground, trudging after his teammates silently, making sure to keep a bit of distance between them. He glances over his shoulder a couple of times to try and see where the bullies have gotten to, but finds the field empty behind him. He scowls and speeds up a little, hating having his back to open space with nothing to protect him.

“ _Really_ wonderful practice, Snape. Play like that and we  _might_ not all end up incapacitated by the end of the first match,” a chaser named Daniel mutters. Severus glares at the ground, his arms crossing defensively over his chest. He's used to these sorts of comments from the rest of the Quidditch team, but that doesn't make him like them any more. 

“Yeah, thanks for nothing, Snivellus. Nearly murdered me out there.” Sirius Black’s voice comes up behind him and before he has the chance to turn around and draw his wand, Severus finds himself sputtering and choking on ice cold liquid. He blinks his eyes quickly, trying to get the water out of them, and raises his hands to push his now sopping hair out of his eyes. He turns around to stare into the sneering face Black, takes in the four wands pointing directly at him, and tries to come up with something scathing to say back.

All he can come up with is a half-hearted, “Don’t call me that.”

Sirius laughs along with the rest of his group as Severus quickly backs into the entrance of the changeroom and closes the door. The rest of the team are just finishing up, so he waits a bit until he is the only one left and then begins the methodical process of removing his Quidditch gear piece by piece. Only once he is wearing nothing but his undergarments does he walk over to the sink counter and pull himself up on the ledge, his gangly legs dangling down.

He lets out a sigh and stares down at his hands. _Why can't they just leave me alone?_

He looks up at his reflection in the mirror in front of him, and frowns. He hates what he sees there, underneath the lank black hair and behind the dull black eyes. His nose is too big, his lips are too thin, his skin too pale. He is useless. So what if he is good at other things? So what if he is smart? People don’t care about that. People care if you are big and strong, if you can hit a bludger or throw a quaffle through a hoop. People care that your blood is pure, and that your bank vault is full, and have friends in high places. People care if you are good looking, and know a lot about sex.

People care if you are popular.

He stares at himself in the mirror and his scowl deepens. He isn’t any of those things. He isn’t good at Quidditch. He isn’t a pureblood. His vault holds only enough for the very basics of what he will need each year for school. He isn't big or strong, or attractive no matter what Lily might say. And he knows absolutely nothing about sex. In short, he is a geek; a greasy, poor, scrawny kid with no friends and nothing but a bit of brains. He is scum, he is a nobody.

He is a _freak_.

His hands ball into fists and he bares his teeth at himself in the mirror. “ _Fuck_ ," he hisses through clenched teeth. “I hate you. I hate you so goddamned much.” His eyes scan his body in the mirror, from his knobby, weak knees to his skinny, too-long arms. They take in his greasy hair and his angular face, with it’s dark brows and large nose and feels like screaming. “I hate you I hate you I hate you!” he yells, his hands unclenching and grabbing at the sides of his head, his eyes squeezing shut with the force of his outburst. “Why don’t you just die?”

“I’m sure we can arrange that for you.”

Severus’s eyes shoot open and he meets the malicious gaze of Sirius Black in the mirror. Beside him stands James Potter, lips twisted in a parody of a smile. Severus swallows heavily, his anger at himself forgotten in the writhing panic that sets in at the sight of the two boys. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, trying to deepen his voice and keep it steady, trying not to show how scared and caught off guard he is. He turns around to face them, putting his back to the mirror. This makes him feel slightly better, and his shoulders relax the slightest bit. He moves his hand towards his side for his wand, before he curses himself mentally; he'd left his wand inside his robe pocket when changing out of his Quidditch gear, and now it is sitting across the room on a bench. Potter and Black both have their wands in their hands, and he knows that there is absolutely no chance of him getting away from this. He clears his throat and asks the question again, trying to buy himself enough time to come up with a plan.

“Oh, we decided that after that performance today, you might need a little…how did you say it, Sirius?” Potter’s voice pipes up.

Black’s lips twitch in amusement. “Negative reinforcement.” They step forwards simultaneously, James moving towards Severus’s right and Black to his left, making sure to leave no room for him to run past them.

Severus stands frozen for a moment, his eyes darting back and forth between the two boys, his wand and the locker room door, trying to calculate the probability of escape. He makes a split second decision when James finally gets within swinging distance and throws a punch at him; he ducks under the fist and lunges to the right, behind James’s body and away from Sirius's hands. He manages to scoop up his robes and runs for the door, trying to search for his wand while running at the same time. He's nearly there when he feels the blast of a spell hit his back. His legs fly out from under him and he goes crashing towards the ground, his back smacking into the cold tiles. His robe and wand fly through the air away from his rigid body, and he wants to let out a scream but in his petrified state cannot.

“You fucking wanker,” James growls at him, his wand tucked away in favor of a fist to Severus's stomach.

“Oof,” he says as all the air is pushed from his lungs, the spell holding him in place broken. James punches him one more time in the ribs before yanking him up off the floor to press him against the wall, his forearm against Severus's throat.

“Going somewhere? That's a bit rude, we've only just begun.” James’s voice is quiet in Severus’s ear, his tone light and casual even as his forearm presses more fully against Severus's windpipe.

Severus chokes and then forces out a sneer. “Lily will never even  _look_ at you, Potter. How does it make you feel, knowing that she's  _my_ friend and that she hates  _you_ _?"_ His words are barely a whisper, but he can see they've made an impact when James's eyes widen slightly.

Potter’s growl of anger echoes off of the locker room walls as his wand comes up to press into Severus's throat. “Stop that, you lying piece of shit! That’s a lie, and you know it! You’re just a freak, Snape, a pathetic, friendless piece of Death Eater scum, and sooner or later Evans will see that; and then she'll be _mine!"_  He yanks himself back and swings his fist around to punch Severus in the face. Severus ducks just in time to avoid being hit in the eye, but the fist glances off the side of his head and causes it to smack backward into the hard tile wall.

He hisses out a breath and crouches down, holding his head in his hands. James glares at him before stepping backward. “He’s all yours, mate. I'm done here.”

“The truth hurts, doesn't it, Potter,” Severus spits out, his vision still too blurry to really see anything, and his head throbs in time with his heartbeat. Potter's only response is, “Fuck you, you fucking fairy. You're just jealous because you know Evans would hate you if she knew how much of a queer you truly are.” James turns and stalks out, shoving his wand into his pocket. His parting words, "I'm gonna go find Remus and Peter, see you later," are ignored by both Severus and Sirius, who just stare at each other for a moment. Severus can feel the tension spike through the air and feels a shiver of fear run down his spine; Potter might talk big, but Black is always crueler and more merciless. All he can hope for is that Black gets bored fairly quickly without an audience and leaves.

“So is that what you like, Snivellus? You queer? Been watching the other Slytherin boys in the showers?” Sirius’s soft voice comes closer and closer, his tone dark. As Severus’s vision clears (although his head still throbs) he can see Sirius fiddling with his belt. _Why is he doing that?_

His eyes go wide as he realizes what that means, what exactly it is that Sirius is doing. His body begins to shake. _No, it can't be…but Sirius only uses his magic to hurt him, only ever curses him- he certainly never does…no. Just no._ Severus begins to struggle upwards, fighting his dizziness in a desperate attempt to escape what is about to happen. Sirius leers and flicks his wand, sending Severus crashing back towards the ground, his legs and arms bound. Severus tries to twist himself into a sitting position and opens his mouth to scream, but Sirius only flicks his wand again and suddenly Severus can't make any noise at all.  _No,_ he thinks, hands tugging uselessly at the bonds around them,  _this can't be happening._

“You like it up the arse, like a fucking ponce, Snivellus? You a little cock slut? You like to have your smart mouth all pretty and pink, wrapped around a man’s cock, letting him fuck your face? Is that how you like it?” Sirius unzips his trousers and pops the button from its hole.

Severus shakes his head desperately and chokes on air, the words he's trying to say making no noise as they get let out in one big rush, one big silent scream of NO.

Sirius pulls his cock from his briefs, the head glistening and an ugly shade of dark purple, the colour of a new bruise. His hand fists over the shaft as he holds it there, erect, and stares with his grey eyes at the trembling boy in front of him. His lips curl up in a cruel smile, and he laughs. “What, nothing smart to say now? No Dark magic can help you now, Snivellus; no little Death Eater pals to help you now."

Severus lets out a silent scream, his eyes having taken one glance at Sirius’s cock before squeezing shut in denial. He shakes his head back and forth forcefully. He mouths the word 'please' over and over again like a prayer. 

Sirius’s cruel laugh rings out again. “Please what? Please stick my cock into that ugly mouth of yours? Please fuck your tight virgin arse? My, what nice manners for a cock slut. Is that what they teach you, your useless parents during the summer? Is that what your mum teaches you, to use your manners like a good little boy?” He takes several steps closer until he's only about a foot away from Severus. “Were your parents mad, when they found out you're a queer? Did daddy beat you?” He reaches out a hand and shoves Severus backward against the wall, before pushing him down to his knees. His hand makes a fist in Severus’s hair and tugs sharply. "James was right, you know; Evans is bound to be disgusted when she finds out you like cock up your arse. I can't wait to tell her, in fact, I can't wait to tell the whole school."

Severus presses his eyes more firmly shut, his head turned as far to the right as it will go. He's never felt more helpless in his life, and his only defense is closing his eyes. He knows its ultimately useless, but he can't help it; it's like if he keeps them shut and doesn’t look, it will turn out to be a nightmare, just a bad dream. Like if he keeps them shut, he won’t have to face what is about to happen.

Sirius pushes his hand over his cock and moves even closer to the smaller boy’s face. “You are nothing but Death Eater scum. And I’m gonna prove it, by making you take my cock down your throat like the common whore you are, and you know what Snivellus?” Sirius pulls Severus's hair until his head is turned up, and he uses his thumb to push the boy’s bruised eyes open. “ _You know what?_ You are gonna _love_ it.” He grins down at Severus and giggles when he tries to force his head away, shaking it back and forth in denial, the fear of what is about to happen clear as day in his eyes.

“Oh _hell_ yes you are, Snivellus,” Sirius whispers, and thrusts his cock forwards towards Severus’s face, letting the head of it slide across one of his cheeks, leaving a sticky gleaming trail in its wake. Severus lets out a silent whimper at the contact, his eyes once again squeezing shut. Sirius smirks again, and pushes his cock again tightly closed lips, forcing his way through. He tightens his grip on Severus's hair and jabs his wand against his throat. "Suck."

Severus closes his eyes once more and even while he screams internally, does as he is told. 

 


	2. Part II

Barely a week after the encounter in the Quidditch changeroom, a week where Severus had spent all his time hidden away inside his own head, curiously detached from everything around him, he is once again magically bound and unable to speak. This time he is laying on the bathroom floor, cheek pressed against the tiles and mouth open in a scream nobody but himself can hear as Sirius Black kneels above him, pressing him down with hands and legs. Black eyes stare at the bottom of one of the toilets across from him, the porcelain pure white, no doubt kept in pristine condition by the house elves. He barely has time to ponder that thought, when suddenly he can feel something large and blunt pressing against his arse, trying to force its way past tense muscles. He struggles against his captor, against the bonds tying him and against the spell; in the end, it's no use. 

Sirius's breathing turns into harsh gasps and his hands clench painfully against Severus's hips. Severus closes his eyes and tries to float away, tries to pretend that nothing is wrong. And when Sirius finishes with a gasp and a painful thrust before getting up and leaving, Severus pretends that the pain he can feel is from falling down, that the blood he can see is not even there. He gets up and washes his hands (as if that will help, as if that will do anything at all) and can't meet his own gaze in the mirror for fear of what he will see there. He feels empty and dead like a dementor has sucked his soul out and left him an empty, helpless, weak shadow.

He's afraid that if he looks, he won't see anything at all.

* * *

Sirius cums into his mouth and groans. He pulls away smirking and reaches out a hand to cover Severus’s mouth, making sure it stays there, making him swallow. “Drink up, Snivellus,” he says, still rubbing the head of his cock across Severus’s cheek. Severus’s eyes are staring up at Sirius's face in fear, and when Sirius looks down at him and says quietly, _"I said drink up!"_  he closes his eyes and nods his head quickly, and does as he is told.  
  
Sirius sighs and steps back, removing his hands from across Severus’s mouth and from his hair, before placing them both on his cock and stroking over it again and again _and again,_ until it is once again hard and dripping. Severus closes his eyes in resignation; he knows what is coming, knows exactly what Sirius is about to do. He listens to the sound of Sirius thrusting into his hand. When he opens his eyes again, Sirius is watching with hooded eyes as Severus tries to unbind his hands from where he kneels, frozen on the cold hard tiles of the floor. Severus's eyes fly upwards when he hears a low grunting noise coming from the other boy, and he watches as Sirius thrusts one last time into his hands before cumming. The white liquid pulses over Severus's chin and lips and as Sirius watches his lips stretch into a lazy grin.

"Hmmm. My cum looks good on you, Snape." He smirks and straightens up, moving towards the sinks to rinse his hands and now limp cock off, before tucking it back into his pants and zipping his trousers up. Severus stares down at the floor, knowing better than to try and get up until Sirius is gone. 

"I have class soon. Until next time." Sirius says, stepping away with a cruel smile still twisting his lips before he gives a mock salute and disappears out the door. Once he is gone Severus let his body collapse for a moment, sinking down to sit on the floor. His chest is heaving, his breaths short and loud. It doesn't matter how many times it happens, it never seems to get any easier. He can feel the dead, emptiness rushing back in, and slowly stands up. He rinses off his face and then washes out his mouth to try and remove the taste. It's too late; he's already swallowed the cum and knows the taste won't go away no matter how much he washes it out. It never does.

He doesn't bother looking at himself in the mirror. He knows he won't see anything worth looking at.

* * *

He tries to tell Lily a million times but never gets past saying her name. Every time, every _single_ time, the words get stuck in his throat and he has to look away. Her eyes, so innocent and open, have started to turn dark when they see him, have started to close off. And he worries that if he tells her, that if he ever says the words "Sirius Black raped me", that she'll turn away and her eyes will turn cold and she'll never again look at him like she  _cares_. Because who could care about someone so weak? Who could love someone so tainted, so broken?

Who could _ever_  love someone like him?

And he knows she's starting to back off from him because of the people in Slytherin that he hangs out with; he knows that the people in his house aren't good people. That they would see Lily Evans dead. That they will never see how brilliant and wonderful and amazing she is. And it kills him a little bit every time, because she is his best friend, his first friend, and he knows it will kill him if he loses her. But he also knows that the people in his house can give him power. And right now, in the moment he feels more powerless than he's ever felt before, he craves that more than anything. The power to bring his enemies to their knees.

The power to stop Sirius Black, and save himself.

And that is something that Lily, for all her goodwill and kindness, can never do for him. She cannot protect him from the Marauders, she cannot protect him from Sirius. She cannot help him and cannot save him, and that means that Severus will ignore her pleas to break ties with the Death Eaters. Because they  _can_ help him, they  _can_ protect him.

He debates telling a professor or the Headmaster; in the end, he decides not to. He doesn't want people to know how weak he is, how useless and fucked up and broken. He doesn't want to give someone the chance to hold this over him, and he doesn't think he could handle it if the secret got out. 

More importantly, after the werewolf attack, he doesn't think anyone will believe him. 

* * *

Lily can tell that there's something he's not telling her, he knows she can. Her eyes narrow a little bit more ever time she looks at him, and she keeps trying to corner him alone, to squeeze it out of him, as if it were her business. Severus avoids her as best he can, knowing she won't believe him, just like she didn't believe him about the werewolf attack, and feels his heart simultaneously break and harden every time he glances her way. And the despair he knows is in his eyes is always mirrored back in hers when she manages to catch his gaze, but it doesn't matter because he's made his choice, and refuses to tell her anything about it. He pushes this pain down beside the pain from the encounters with Black and does his best to ignore both things until they are both shoved so far back in sub-conscious that they only surface in his dreams.

Sometimes he thinks it was nothing but a particularly vivid and sick nightmare he'd had, the bubbling up of his perverted nature. Sometimes he wonders if he's going mad because it  _must_ all be in his head, there's no way it could be real. And then he finds himself once again bound and silenced on the ground somewhere, his mind detached and his brain dead and his body violated in the worst way. 

 _Just a dream,_ he thinks to himself during these times.  _Just a nightmare, and I'll wake up soon._

But he never does.

* * *

Lily finds him laying on the ground at the edge of the forest. She had waited for him to show up to class, waited and waited and _waited-_  but he never had. So she had gone looking for him. She was worried about him, Severus never missed class, and she knew that whatever the reason, it had to be bad. She just hadn't realized _how_ bad. _Oh god,_ he thinks when he see's her.  _Please don't let her know, please oh please oh please._

"Severus?" she whispers, sounding unsure, sounding confused. He closes his eyes and breathes out deeply. _Maybe she won't notice,_ he thinks desperately. But Lily isn't an idiot, and she takes one look at his face _(bloody, bruised, covered in cum)_ and knows. He looks at her now, see's her eyes wide and her mouth open, and thinks _this is the end_.

"Lily." His voice is empty and blank, but his heart is beating faster and harder than it ever has before.

"What- what happened?" She steps closer to untie his hands, and he flinches away. She freezes and her hands drop back to her sides.

"I'm sorry, I- I'm sorry." Severus babbles, trying to untie his own bound hands, trying not to taste the cum on his lips. He shakes and shudders and nearly vomits.

Lily whimpers and drops to the ground. "Who did this?" her voice is soft but her words are  _horrible._ How can he tell her? How can he not?

He shakes his head and doesn't meet her eyes. "It's not important."

 _"Who did this?"_ Her voice is no longer soft, but hard and harsh and cruel, and he wants so desperately to tell her the truth.  _But I can't,_ he thinks,  _I can't, she won't believe me. No one will._

"No one, it's nothing." Even he can hear the lie in his voice, in his words.

Her face hardens and her voice is like ice. "It was them, wasn't it?" - and Severus whimpers and wants to scream because  _she knows, this is it,-_ "It was Avery and Nott and fucking Mulciber."

Severus's head shoots up and his eyes widen and he looks at her angry face and feels the world stop.  _What?_ he thinks incredulously.  _What?_

_"What?"_

She shakes in anger and her hands are fists and she says, "I  _told_ you to stay away from them, I told you they're no good! How  _dare_ they!"

He blinks at her and feels like laughing. _Because of course, she would think it was them,_ he thinks deliriously.  _It couldn't possibly be anyone else. Couldn't possibly be a Gryffindor like Sirius Black._  "You think it was  _them_ that did this?" He can hear the venom and the scorn and all his pent up anger trembling beneath the surface of his words, and suddenly knows he's going to start laughing because it's either that or cry and he won't give Lily the satisfaction of seeing him like that. He laughs hysterically, cum dripping onto his tongue from his lips and he doesn't care. And then he leans over and vomits into the bushes. His hands finally escape the bonds and he wipes his mouth and his face on the sleeve of his robe.

"Well, of course, it was them...wasn't it?" Lily sounds so sure of herself, and then she doesn't sound so sure at all. He closes his eyes and tries to breathe without choking on the vomit still in his throat. 

"No. It wasn't."

"Oh. I- how long has this been-" she stumbles over her words. He can tell she doesn't believe him, and he doesn't bother trying to convince her.

"Long enough." And then he refuses to say anything else.  

* * *

Losing Lily isn't as hard as he thinks it should be. Not when she refuses to believe him, not when she refuses to leave him alone. Not after years of the same routine, with her, with Potter, with Black. It hurt before, when she would force him to try and have fun with the Marauders; but now? Now it feels like nothing.

_“All right, Snivellus?”_

Severus turns around lightning quick, but he is too slow.

_“Expelliarmus!”_

_“Impedimenta!”_

Severus lays on the ground, helpless without his wand. He can feel his spine stiffen because he knows that Black is there, seeing him helpless, watching him struggle. Just like all those other times.

_“How’d the exam go, Snivelly?"_

Black's voice is vicious and jeering, and it makes Severus shudder. _“I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment. There’ll be great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word.”_

 _“You — wait,”_ he pants, staring up at James but directing his words at Sirius. _“You — wait.”_ It's a warning, and they both know it; he can see it on Sirius's face from the corner of his eye. 

_“Wait for what? What’re you going to do, Snivelly, wipe your nose on us?”_

Severus swears under his breath, but it doesn't matter; Potter hears him anyways.

_“Wash out your mouth. Scourgify!”_

_“Leave him ALONE!”_ Lily is standing there, her wand in her hand, her face angry. He wants to laugh but can't get enough air to do it.

Too late to help me now, Lily, he thinks.

_“All right, Evans?”_

_“Leave him alone! What’s he done to you?”_

_“Well, it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean. . . .”_ Sirius laughs along with everyone else, but Severus can feel him watching, can see the dangerous look in his eyes. It makes Severus thankful for the crowd.

_“You think you’re funny, but you’re just an arrogant, bullying toerag, Potter. Leave him alone.”_

_“I will if you go out with me, Evans. Go on . . . Go out with me, and I’ll never lay a wand on old Snivelly again.”_

_“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid.”_

_“Bad luck, Prongs,”_ Sirius says, his eyes flickering towards his friend before latching back onto Severus. He watches as Severus struggles against the spell for a moment, and smiles.

_"Levicorpus!"_

That bastard, Severus thinks angrily, that bastard used my own spell against me.

_“Let him down!”_

_“Certainly.”_

Severus crumples into a heap on the ground, his position too familiar for comfort. He knows it's coming before the words even leave Black's lips.

_“Petrificus Totalus!”_

_“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”_

_“Ah, Evans, don’t make me hex you,”_

_“Take the curse off him, then!”_

_“There you go. You’re lucky Evans was here, Snivellus —”_ Lucky? Severus is anything but lucky. Lucky would be if Lily had been there for the first time, if she had stopped it. Lucky would be if it hadn't happened.

Lucky would be him never having being born.

 _“I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”_ And Severus is surprised to find that he means it; he doesn't need her help. She refuses to see the truth and she refuses to believe in him, so what else can he do but push her away? She can't help him anyway, she never could.  

_“Fine. I won’t bother in future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”_

And he thinks that should hurt more than it does, her calling him that name. But Severus finds that very little hurts nowadays, not when compared to the tearing and burning and bleeding feeling of his body being pounded into. Not when compared to the emptiness of his soul after each encounter.

No, Severus thinks. Losing Lily doesn't hurt at all.

 

* * *

 

It's both easier and harder when he's at home for the summers. At home he can let himself float away in familiar hatred for his father and his mother and their weakness and poverty. At home he can forget. There is no Black to remind him, no Potter, and now there's no Lily either; its empty and its safe and he's able to be  _alone_. It's wonderful and easy.

Until it isn't.

Sometimes the silence and the solitude make it hard to push the thoughts away. The silence eats away at his brain until all that is left are memories he doesn't want to have. And being alone makes it easier to slip into nightmares, makes it easier to go mad inside of himself.

One thing that doesn't change no matter where he is, is the emptiness. It leaves him open like a wound, bleeding his emotions and his thoughts out into the dark so there is nothing left inside of him. And sometimes he cherishes it, and sometimes he hates it. But always, he feels empty.

The only time he's not felt empty are the times when Sirius Black is filling him up; and that thought, that _truth,_ sickens him like nothing else. It makes him want to vomit and scream and cry and run away. _Why is it only when Black is hurting me, that I am able to feel?_ he thinks desperately, after waking from a nightmare, his forehead damp with sweat and his sheets damp with something else.  _Why is it only when Black is fucking me, that I feel like myself?_ He wants nothing more than to escape; the summer after his seventh year, he takes the mark.

He won't ever let himself be weak again. 

 

 

 

 


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to SeverusLover147, who tells me they love this story and who's encouraging comments helped me write this newest chapter. Thank you so much for being awesome, this story might have died without you and others like you. :)

 

  _July 1993_

 

  
Severus wakes that morning unknowing and unconcerned. He spends the hour before breakfast on his morning routine, brewing and bathing and sipping the mint tea Minerva gives to him at Yule every year. It is his favourite thing about the summer, this ability to skip breakfast in the Great Hall and merely drink tea in the comfort of his quarters. His thoughts are occupied by trivial things, such as Slytherin's chances for the Quidditch Cup in the upcoming year, and what sort of trouble Potter and his friends are likely to get into. When the clock on his mantle chimes nine he's shaken from his solitude by the appearance of a silver phoenix, its wings aflame with light as the voice of Albus Dumbledore comes from its beak.

 _"Emergency staff meeting, my office. Immediately."_ It disappears.

He stands abruptly, his tea cup dropping from his hand and shattering on the uncovered stone at his feet. The Headmaster's voice is grave and filled with a firmness Severus hardly ever hears, and the fact that a Patronus has been used to send the message does not bode well of the news he is sure Albus has to share. He leaves the cup where it is and moves out the door, his feet swiftly taking him to the floor above where the entrance to the Headmaster's office is located. Before he can even _think_ the password the gargoyle jumps aside, and Severus feels his heartbeat jump in anticipation and apprehension; never before has such a thing occurred.

If he was not already certain of the situations gravity, Severus would be convinced by this alone. He moves up the moving staircase quickly and enters the circular room, sliding around the outskirts of the already assembled crowd taking up the center. The teachers hardly notice his entry, and their voices are all going at once as they try to make sense of what exactly is going on.

He can see the moment when Albus notes his presence and is surprised when he fails to call the meeting to order. He can see Minerva beside the Headmaster, both of their lips moving incredibly fast, Minerva's eyes wide in shock at something he can't hear. He wonders if he should go to them, but before he can do anything his ears pick up on the shrill voice of Sybil, who he's surprised to see has deigned to leave her tower.

_"Did you hear? Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban!"_

_No!_ Severus's mind screams, and he jolts backward in an abnormal show of emotion. _No, it cannot be, it simply cannot..._ His head snaps up to stare at Albus, and he watches as the man turns to him and frowns, head tilting downward the slightest bit. Severus's eyes follow along that downward path, and he nearly screams.

  
_"What?"_

  
_"Yes!"_

  
_"But-"_

  
_"No-"_

  
_"That can't be-"_

  
_"How-"_

  
_"When-"_

  
_"Don't you read the paper? It was in the Prophet this morning!"_

  
_"Well, I never! What will we do?"_

  
Severus stands frozen at the edge of the Headmaster's office, his hair hiding his face and the terror in his eyes, hiding the fear twisting his lips. He stands encased in shadow, alone and isolated while his colleagues argue around him. The Daily Prophet sits on the top of Albus's desk, and Severus closes his eyes and tries to suppress the urge to vomit. Sirius Black grins maniacally up from the front page, his eyes hard and cold and his hair long and ragged. Though thinner and older and dirtier than Severus remembers, he is unmistakably the same Black Severus knows from school. He tries to mask a shudder and wonders if he can make a quiet escape; he'd rather be anywhere but here.

  
_"Well, what can we do, Albus? It's out of our hands."_

  
_"I cannot allow the Ministry to do this!"_

  
_"It's for our safety, for the children's safety! They only want to help."_

  
_"Dementors, on school grounds? Safe? You must be mad!"_

  
_"But think of Potter! We must keep him safe!"_

  
_"Potter? What does he-"_

  
_"Why on earth is Harry-"_

  
_"Didn't you know? Black's after him!"_

  
_"What-"_

  
_"No-"_

  
_"It can't be-"_

  
As he is standing there a feeling of utter hopelessness rises up from the very depths of his mind and it's like he's back there all over again, a helpless teenager, too weak to fight his demons. Black's eyes mock him and tear him into tiny pieces, turn his mind to dust. His heart is thudding in his chest loud enough to be heard from the moon and his stomach gives an uncomfortable lurch every time he catches sight of the Prophet's front page. He feels like he's going to vomit, knows he will if he has to stay much longer.

He thinks about making his escape now, leaving the room before anyone notices. He turns away to face the shadows and moves along the wall as slowly and quietly as possibly, his black robes barely moving. He's barely taken a single step when Albus's voice stops him in his tracks and he stiffens.

  
"What do you think, Severus?"

  
Albus's eyes are hard and narrow and piercing and it's all he can do not to scream because _he knows, damn him,_ _Albus bloody well knows,_ but he doesn't turn around. He stands there, silent for a moment, trying to take a breath without vomiting and wishing all the eyes he can feel on his back would just go away. The rest of the room assume Albus is speaking about the Dementors, and Severus pretends that is all Albus is speaking about as well. "I think that there is nothing we can do about it. If the Ministry is hell bent on catching _Black_ -" he spits the name out in his efforts not to choke on it, "then they will do whatever they must. Now, if that is all, I have brewing I must get to." Severus squeezes his eyes closed and tries to melt back into the shadows, away from the haunting eyes of Sirius Black and the eyes of his colleagues. It takes all of his willpower not to rush to the door, and he is nearly there when Albus' voice makes him freeze once again.

"And Harry?"

He closes his eyes and tries to breathe in without crying. He can feel tears welling up behind his eyelids and knows he won't be able to hold them off for very long. His fingers slide off of the handle and back down to his side. Green eyes and red hair flash in his mind and he nearly breaks with the memory. "What of Potter?" And he knows it's cruel and stilted and rude, but he can't bring himself to care, can't bring himself to care about the son of James Potter, of Lily Evans. Why should I? he thinks desperately, his chest tight and his eyes burning. Why should I care, when his father tortured me when his mother tortured me too. Why does Harry Potter matter more? What about me? He wishes he had never thought to make that stupid vow of protection, of servitude because then he would be free to leave. To run.

Albus's voice is harder than he's heard it in a long time. "Surely you know that Sirius Black will come after him; it's the entire reason for his escape. He betrayed Harry's parents to Voldemort and now he wishes to finish the job."

Severus clenches his hands into fists to stop himself from clawing at his face and his chest. He knows this, of course, he knows this! But for Albus to point it out to him, here, now, in front of the staff... to speak to him of Black like it is _nothing,_ like they don't have a history... Severus shakes. The unspoken 'Black may have betrayed the Potter's, but it is you who is to blame for their deaths' is loud and clear in Albus's voice, beneath the kindness and patience and genial tone. And it makes him want to cry, makes memories he has buried deep within his mind burst forwards like the tide and he wishes with all his shriveled heart that he was dead. He remembers, and it's painful.

 

 

 

> _"I've heard it, the beginning of the prophecy, my lord."_  
>  _"Very good,_ Ssseverus _. Now, show me!"_  
>  _"Yes, my lord."_  
>  _"Ligilimens."_

 

Severus knows what Albus is insinuating, that even though Black went to prison for his crimes, Severus is the real criminal. That he is the one who is at fault, the one to blame. And it hurts, knowing Albus thinks that of him, despite all the years of fixing things, of trying to make it better. But what hurts worse is knowing that he is right. Severus may hate Black _(and how he hates him, how he despises him more than anything that has ever existed)_ for making him weak and making him helpless. But he will always hate himself more. He wants nothing more than to flee to his chambers and try to drown himself in whiskey and work, but Albus is still looking for an answer to his question, and he will not let Severus go until he answers.

"I'd think escaping prison would be enough reason, don't you, Headmaster?" And how he manages to sound scathing and uncaring he doesn't know, but he is absurdly grateful for it; it gives him something to ground himself with, something to hold on to while the rest of him crumbles into an incoherent mess.

Albus's tone is admonishing, the warning beneath it clear to anyone who cared to hear it. _"Severus."_

He wrenches the door open and refuses to turn around. "Potter will be safe at Hogwarts, just as he was _oh so safe_ last year and the year before." He can hear Minerva gasp and feels a dark satisfaction well up alongside the vomit in his throat. Take that, you bastard, he thinks savagely towards Albus, and it almost makes him want to turn and meet his eyes so the older man can read it from his mind.

"Severus-"

 _"Good day,_ Headmaster." The door slams shut behind him.

 

* * *

 

  
Severus barely makes it back to his quarters before he's emptying his stomach into the toilet, his knees coming down with a familiar crack against cold tile. The feeling causes a flash of memory, him on his knees in the boy's bathroom, vomit and something worse coating his throat and tongue. He heaves the last of his tea and biscuits into the porcelain bowl as scenes from his past and emotions he believed to be gone painfully resurface.

Twelve years since the war ended. Twelve years since Severus last had to bow down to his master. Twelve years since he held Lily's lifeless body in his arms, wishing he had been able to make a difference, wishing she hadn't given up on him all those years ago.

Twelve years since Sirius Black had been put in prison for his crimes.

"It's not enough," he whispers to himself, staring helplessly into his bathroom mirror. "It's not nearly enough." His reflection is jagged and broken, the cracks in the surface of the mirror turning his face into something abstract. If he looks hard enough he's sure his reflection shows him as a schoolboy, torn up and bleeding, bruised in all the worst places. That same lank hair, that same hooked nose, that same sallow skin, so pale that the blue of his veins shows through. Haunted. Dead inside. _"Worthless, disgusting, unloved, freak,"_ his reflection seems to say, and the worst thing is he believes it. He’s always believed it. This is why I never look at my reflection, he thinks as he fails to tear his eyes away from the mirror. Because this ghostly apparition before him appears more dead than alive, and it only serves to remind him of his own weakness, his own failings. All these years later, and the picture in the Prophet is all it takes.

All these years later, and suddenly he’s nothing at all.

 

* * *

 

  
That day is the first time in nearly a decade Severus says that name, and it's as if a dam has been broken the moment he says it. He barricades himself in his rooms, frantically casting wards he hasn't felt the need to use for ages. Everything he attempts to eat comes back up, and in the end, he stops trying. Every shadow is Sirius Black leering at him, every flicker of candlelight the glint of his cruel eyes, every sudden sound an echo of his terrible laugh. There is nothing in his rooms which does not send his heart racing, which does not remind him in some way of the living nightmare he endured as a teenager at school. He shivers and he shakes, and despite the fact that there is nothing left for his stomach to reject Severus once again finds himself on his knees in the bathroom, dry heaving into the toilet.

His eyes are streaming with tears that burn like trails of fire down his cheeks. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you," he whispers, an echo from his nightmares. He tries to convince himself the words are directed at Black, but he knows better. Severus has only ever said those words to himself, and always it is when he is staring into a mirror, his reflection staring back with the empty dark eyes of his past. He watches his reflection and is reminded of a Muggle superstition his father had taught him; if you say the name of the Devil while staring into a mirror that he will appear and drag you down into hell with him.

As he stares he wonders if he says Sirius Black three times in a row, in the dark in front of his mirror if Black will appear. If he will laugh his cruel laugh and drag Severus down into the depths of hell where he knows his soul belongs. Maybe it would be better that way, Severus thinks, maybe hell would be better than this. He starts to say the name, the sound of the 's' barely past his lips when he suddenly falls back. His magic lashes out violently, uncontrollably, and the already cracked mirror shatters into a thousand pieces, glass falling into the sink below. It doesn't matter, he thinks viciously, It wouldn't have happened anyways because even if Black were to appear, he's never desired Severus's death, only to use him and abuse him in the worst way possible. He uses his hands to clean up the glass, and watches as his skin bleeds red _(red, the color of love, the color of passion, the color of Lily)_ and feels a vague surprise that he can still bleed, can still feel pain. He doesn't think he'll survive the next few weeks, never mind the seven years of bad luck his broken mirror promises him.

 _Death,_ Severus thinks that night, curled into a tight ball under his covers with his wand clutched tightly in his hand, _death is a mercy I will never be given._ For the first time in twelve years, Severus Snape cries himself to sleep; only to wake up a few hours later screaming, his legs and sheets sticky with fluid. _(I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.)_

 

* * *

 

  
The beginning of term is looming closer, and Severus finds himself on the ground in front of his fireplace, an empty bottle of whiskey on the stone floor beside him. He lays there as the flames burn out and only smoldering coals are left, lays there until the room around him seems to spin in circles around his head.

Lily's eyes, he thinks deliriously. Her beautiful, terrible eyes haunting me beyond the grave, blaming me, accusing me. Never understanding.

She was blind, always so ready to place the blame for something she didn't understand on people she didn't like.

 _"Why?"_ he'd asked her once, during the summer after third year. _"Why do you hate everyone in my house so much?"_ She didn't bother answering him, just swung higher and higher on her swing, jumping off at the last second and floating down to the grass.

 _"Race you!"_ she said and took off down the hill to her house, red hair flying behind her. He stayed behind, slipping quietly from his swing and standing there at the top of the hill, the sky darkening behind him.

 _"It's because they're Slytherins, isn't it? That's why you hate them."_ His voice stopped her mid-run, and she turned back.

 _“Obviously, Sev.”_ She had rolled her eyes.

_“But I’m a Slytherin, Lily. What about me?”_

She turned her back and began walking down the hill away from him. _“You’re different, silly. You’re not a real Slytherin, you’re just Sev.”_ He’d laughed at her and they’d chased each other all the way home. It took him three years before he understood it as the insult it was.

It took him five more years before he realized Lily hadn’t been much of a friend at all.

 

* * *

 

  
The room is a spinning, dizzying circle of flame and stone, and it takes all of Severus’s self-control not to just topple over. He finds himself laid down flat against the floor, his cheek pressed to cold stone and his dark eyes staring unblinkingly into the dancing flames of his slowly dying fire. He’s drunk, more drunk than he’s been in years _(twelve years, and isn’t that funny, even him drinking comes back to Sirius Black)_ and the fire takes him back to Godric’s Hollow, the smell of smoke stinging his nostrils as he fights his way through the burning building to Lily’s lifeless body.

Her hair was so red and her skin so pale. If only her eyes had been closed, he could have pretended she was asleep; but they weren’t, and he can’t help thinking that even lifeless they accused him, full of betrayal and misunderstandings.

Severus remembers that night with the vivid feverish abandon of a drunk man, remembers holding her body to his chest knowing he wouldn’t find a heart beat and searching for one anyways. Remembers turning away from her dead (and yet accusing, always accusing) gaze with tears in his eyes, crying for all the years he’d gone without her friendship, all the years he’d fought to be strong enough without her (he’d failed; oh, how he’d failed). He thinks about how he’d felt his heart breaking while kneeling in that burning house, listening to the sound of a child crying and feeling his lungs burn with the acrid taste of smoke.

Sometimes he thinks he can hear the sound of a child crying in his nightmares, piercing and high-pitched and full of fear. He wakes up with tears on his cheeks, blinking away the sight of flames and smoke and death. As he lays on the floor that night in July and stares into the fire unblinkingly, he cannot help but to wishfully think that the flames might leap out and pull him in, reducing him to nothing more than ashes. Let me burn, his mind whispers as his eyes flutter closed with the force of his sudden exhaustion. Let me burn tonight. His eyes flutter shut and for once his mind fails to dream.

 

 


	4. Part IV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised some of you that I'd be updating in August, and it's now late September. I'm really sorry, truly I am, I honestly never meant for it to take this long. The chapter I wrote and had done by the end of August I only later realized wasn't what I wanted for the next part of the story. I ended up having to write another one, one which would go between 3 and 5. So, here I am, late September, asking for your forgiveness, and hoping that you'll all enjoy this next instalment of Severus Snape's heart wrenching story.

Her screams can be heard five corridors away, and he rushes as fast as he can to try and keep up with the rest of the staff as they race toward Gryffindor Tower, Albus far in the lead. He passes by a row of windows and shudders, the cold, dead feeling Dementors cause only becoming worse with a glimpse of them. Severus knows that the Dementors haven't caused his nightmares, but he chooses to blame them for the resurfacing of terrible memories. He fears the worst when they finally reach the entrance to the Common Room, his stomach heaving with fury and terror. Fury at the Dementors for failing to do their job, and terror at what he's seeing now, what it implies.

  
The place where the Fat Lady should be is torn to shreds and Severus nearly vomits at the sight. This, this was done by Black. Black, who was out of Azkaban, who was _in the school._ He is filled with such despair that when a shrill scream comes from his left, instead of whipping out his wand in defense his first instinct is to turn and run the other way.

Thankfully, the crowd of students and teachers alike pushing into him from behind mean he must stay where he is, and Severus is able to hide his initial reaction.

"Dear lady. Who did this to you?" The Headmaster asks quietly, and Severus has no idea how the man can be so calm, so _unconcerned,_ as if Black was once again a student, pulling nothing more but _'harmless pranks'_ to the laughter of everyone around him. How can Albus stand there and ask that when he _goddamned knows who did this to her!_

He barely listens to the woman tell her story, merely leans against the wall behind him and tries to melt into the shadows. _I should have known,_ he thinks, doing his best to choke down the bile rising in his throat. _I should have known the Prophet got it wrong when they said Achintee. When are they ever right?_ He swallows hard and decides that Albus doesn't need him at the moment, before turning away and nearly running back to his chambers as the entirety of the student body flood to the Great Hall.

Sirius Black is at Hogwarts, and suddenly every nightmare Severus has ever had comes to life.

 

* * *

 

_He's lying on the Quidditch field, Sirius Black standing above him with a smirk. Severus tries to stand, but he is restrained and stripped naked. Suddenly it's not just Sirius, but everyone. Lily, Potter, Lupin, Avery, Nott, Mulciber. Petunia, his father, Dumbledore._

_His mother._

_He struggles to stand, to move, to do anything at all; but all he can do is watch as they surround him, wands out and glowing red. "Lily! Please, Lily, help me..."_

_Her eyes are dead when they look at him, and she says, "You don't need help from Mudbloods like me, Snivellus." Her tone is full of disgust and something else, something even worse. It takes him a moment before he realizes that it's not what's in it, but what it's lacking._

_It's lacking sympathy._

_Squeezing his eyes shut, he turns his head away as everyone begins chanting, words that make him want to cry, names that remind him of what it's like to be forced onto his knees, cum and blood dripping down his chin._

_"Snivellus Snape," James says, his wand twisting in his hand, the spell growing brighter._

_"Cock slut," Jeers Sirius, the look in his eyes the same self-satisfied look he gets after every encounter._

_His mum can't even look him in the eyes when she says, "Mummy's little whore," her voice somehow a shout and a whisper all at once._

_"Did daddy beat you, Snivelly?" His father watches him, fingers the buckle on his belt and smirks when Severus nearly chokes on his own vomit at the sight._

_Dumbledore is the only one who looks disappointed, his blue eyes shadowed and his voice full of pity. "This is all your fault, Severus. Everything is always your fault."_

_The light glows brighter and brighter until suddenly the voice of the Dark Lord screams out "Crucio!" and every wand turned on him releases its spell._

_The scream that is ripped from his throat is so loud it tears at his lungs, his vocal chords, he's screaming and screaming and suddenly his hands are free and he's clawing at his face, trying to escape to escape to esca-_

Severus jolts awake, his black eyes flying open and his mouth open to give voice to a scream that refuses to come. His hands shake, and he can feel his stomach heave. He doesn't make it to the bathroom, and his thoughts pound in his head in unison with his heartbeat.

_freak(Ihateyou)freak(Ihateyou)freak(Ihateyou)freak(Ihateyou)freak(Ihate-)_

In the end, his own voice is always the loudest.

 

* * *

 

He's in the middle of rinsing his mouth out with water, trying to remove the taste of vomit _(and the taste of something else, something sticky and thick and white, even if it's just in his memories)_ when he hears a voice behind him, spinning around in fear before catching sight of Albus's silver phoenix patronus.

_"Please search and secure the dungeons, and then join me in the Great Hall."_

It might be worded as a request, but Severus knows better; it is an order, and he doesn't dare disobey. He spits one last time _(a luxury Black had never allowed him)_ before turning away, obeying a different master but still doing as he is told.

Always doing as he is told.

 

* * *

 

He slips through the shadows in the Great Hall, coming to a stop beside Albus. He keeps his head bowed. "I've done the dungeons, Headmaster. No sign of Black. Nor anywhere else in the castle." His voice is hardly steady, but he covers the tremor up by whispering. 

Dumbledore nods. "I didn't really expect him to linger."

It is all Severus can do not to scowl. _You might not have,_ he thinks viciously, his nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood. _But you don't know the reasons why he might. You don't know the things he's done, and you don't want to know._

The more it comes up in his thoughts, the more Severus finds himself disgusted with the Headmaster for his wilful ignorance. But this man is his master, as the Dark Lord once was (as _Black_ once was) and a lifetime of servitude is a difficult habit to break. (And isn't that the most disgusting truth, his most terrible secret? That he lives with the need to serve in some way.)

"Remarkable feat, don't you think? To enter Hogwarts on one's own, completely undetected..." His voice is suddenly louder, the anger he feels bubbling just beneath the surface. It won't last long, it never does, but it's a good distraction from his thoughts. "You may recall, prior to the start of term, I did express my  _concerns_ when you appointed Professor-," He never gets the chance to spit the name out, as once again Albus Dumbledore chooses to bask in his ignorance and turn a blind eye to the actions of his favorite students.

"I do not believe a single Professor inside this castle would have helped Sirius Black enter it, Severus," his voice is sharp, the warning in the way he say's Severus's name, in the way his blue eyes harden until they are like shards of ice stabbing into what little hope Severus has left. "No, I feel quite confident the castle is  _safe,_ and I'm more than willing to let the students return to their houses. But tomorrow. For now, let them sleep." His eyes are no longer on Severus, but pointed somewhere into the darkness, as if there was something he was searching for amongst the sea of sleeping bags.

His next words, however, Severus can't help but feel like a slap in the face.

"It's astonishing what the body can endure when the mind allows itself to rest."

Severus bites his tongue hard enough to make it bleed, all to stop himself from blurting out  _just what his body has had to endure,_ and instead gives a half-bow and leaves just as swiftly and silently as he arrived. On his way back down to the dungeons, he catches his eye in the reflection on one of the windows, and freezes. He stares at himself and wonders what good it all did, joining the Dark Lord, if this is what he's reduced to the moment Black's name is mentioned. If he can't even face the idea of encountering _him_ for a few minutes, what business does he have pretending to be strong, pretending to be brave?

His eyes are dark and full of something it takes him a moment to identify; exhaustion.

_How much longer can I live like this?_

 

* * *

 

Severus is on his way back to the dungeons when he hears muffled footsteps and a quiet voice ahead in the darkness. His heart immediately starts pounding double in his chest, and it is all he can do to keep his wand steady in front of him. The voice and footsteps stop suddenly and he swallows past the lump in his throat, his breathing harsh and his hands shaking. "Lumos," he whispers and turns the corner, a vicious curse on the tip of his tongue, ready to push all of his fear and hatred and disgust into a duel if he must.

Instead, he has to swallow down the curse and muster up a look of anger, when all he really feels is relieved. "Potter. What are you doing wandering the corridors at night?" Like he does so often now, he keeps his voice low and just above a whisper, trying to mask his feelings as thoroughly as possible.

"I was... I was sleepwalking." 

He is nearly startled into laughter at that, and isn't that strange? The first time he's felt like laughing in ages, and it's because Potter is a shitty liar.

"How extraordinarily like your father you are, Potter. He, too, was exceedingly arrogant. Strutting about the castle-,"

Potter raises his voice in anger, and finally, Severus feels that spark of anger he's been missing for so long. He needs it now, to ground him in reality, to remind him that  _he is in control!_

He's too busy trying to keep his mind firm to care when Lupin comes to take Potter away. He doesn't even bother taking points, knowing that he owes what little energy he has left to the boy.

 

* * *

 

 

He'd been right! He'd been right all along!

Severus nearly screams in victory when he see's Lupin crawl through the secret entrance at the Whomping Willow.  _That fool, he's going to help Black! Black is in there right now, and if I hurry I might even be able to kill him,_ he thinks as he moves forward, using a spell to freeze the branches of the Willow before swallowing his fear and getting onto his knees in order to crawl. The position is a familiar one, not only because of Black but because of that night, _that full moon,_  when he'd been foolish enough  _(tricked, I was tricked)_ to try and catch a glimpse of the monster haunting the Shrieking Shack.

_Well,_ he thinks smugly, pushing the terror down and letting his rage take over until it was the only thing left inside of him. _This time I'll see the real monster, and kill it too._ Never has he felt more ready, and as he reaches the end of the tunnel he doesn't bother pausing before leaping out, his wand raised.

"Expelliarmus!"

Never has one word felt sweeter.

"Ah, vengeance is sweet," his voice is soft, dangerous, and it's as if his anger and hatred for this man had been waiting all this time for this very moment, bottled and saved up, until Severus had the chance to go in for the kill. "How I hoped I'd be the one to catch you." His wand twists in his hand as his brain filters through every painful, horrific curse he knows. 

Lupin steps forward. "Severus," and his mind is thrown back to his school days, when Black had been the Devil and Lupin had never done a thing about it.

Suddenly, the anger bubbling just beneath the surface explodes, and it's glorious. "I  _told_ Dumbledore you were helping your old friend into the castle!" he sneers, and oh does it feel wonderful, being angry instead of scared, nearing victory instead of humiliation. "And here's the proof."

"Brilliant! And as usual, dead wrong." Black grins and Severus can see that look he knows so well in the man's eyes. "Now give us our wands back. Remus and I have a bit of unfinished business to tend to." The grin only grows wider when Severus actually twitches, having to physically stop himself from obeying. He feels disgusted with himself and moves quickly until his wand is pressed against the other man's throat.

"Give me a reason," he whispers, voice deadly and filled with the promise of pain, all the pain Black had ever caused him. _"I beg you."_ Saying those words should feel like a step back, but they don't. No, in this context, at this moment, they feel more like a victory than anything else ever has. 

Severus Snape is facing his greatest fear, and he is winning. 

 

* * *

 

 

Black hadn't betrayed the Potter's. Black hadn't betrayed Lily. Black was innocent.

Severus crumples to the ground and rests his head against the stone beneath him. 

_Not innocent,_ he struggles to breath, struggles to think. _No, not innocent. They're lying, Lupin is lying._

Sirius Black cannot be innocent, because if he is then it means Severus is the only one to blame.

He watches in a daze as Pettigrew is revealed, the Weasley boy in tears as his rat transforms into a human. Everything is distorted until one word cuts through the fog, and Severus tries to sit up, to speak, to do anything at all as Potter stops Black and Lupin from killing the true vermin responsible for Lily's death. And suddenly he is outside, and his head is pounding, and he is facing down a monster he never thought he'd have to deal with again.

"No!" He shouts, wand out despite knowing that any spell he casts will be useless against Lupin in this form. His head is throbbing so badly that it's all he can do to keep his eyes open and mind focused, shielding the children as best he can with his body. The moment the beast is gone, off chasing Black, he collapses, his eyes closing and his mind going blank.

 

* * *

 

 

When he wakes up in the Hospital Wing with Albus beside him wearing a smile, he wants to cry.

"Black, Lupin helped him into the castle, they've been conspiring, they-,"

"Enough, Severus," Albus say's, quietly. "I know the truth. The blame for the Potter's deaths lies with Peter Pettigrew." He eyes Severus, his face an unusual mixture of pity and disappointment which only serves to remind Severus of the Dumbledore in his nightmares. "Sirius Black is innocent."

His voice is harsh. _"No,"_ he spits out, wanting him to understand, to finally  _listen to him._  "Black may never have betrayed the Potter's, but that doesn't make him _innocent."_

Albus sighs heavily. "I don't know what you want from me, Severus. I am much too old to be playing these games with you."

_"I am not playing games!"_ How dare he? How _dare_ he accuse _Severus_ of playing games, when all he'd ever done was _tell the truth!_ _"It is hardly my fault that you refused to listen to a child who needed your help!"_

Severus feels his fury fade when the Headmaster gets up to leave without another word. He curls up in a ball and closes his eyes, trying to keep his tears from spilling out, trying to keep his pain shoved down deep inside the hole in his chest.

_I wonder what my reflection would show me now?_

_(I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it was so terribly late, and you all deserve the next one right now. I'm going to give it a week or so, and then I'll be posting the already complete chapter 5. I hope the story isn't moving too slowly for you, but I plan on this being a very long story and I have a lot of things to cover between now and when Harry and Snape get together. As you can see, this is an emotional roller-coaster, for both the characters and me, so please have patience and be kind. And to all my lovely wonderful readers who love this story and plan on sticking with it 'til the end: thank you, thank you all so much. You have no idea how much it means to me, and I am honoured and humbled by your support.


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